Review: “Dunkirk” by Christopher Nolan is A Suspenseful War Flick That Will Make Your Heart Races
Christopher Nolan once again delivers surprise and magnificent work through his latest feature film “Dunkirk”. The director behind films like “Interstellar”, “Inception” and “The Dark Knight Trilogy” brings a different atmosphere in this film compared to his previous ones. We would go as far as stating that “Dunkirk” is one of the best film we have watched this year. The film’s plot was inspired by a true event happening at Dunkirk beach during World War 2, when British army and allies had to be pushed back by Germany to the shore and got surrounded by the enemy without any ships to rescue them and bring them home. The real event itself was labeled as ‘Battle of Dunkirk’ which became one of the most significant and celebrated heroic rescue mission during World War 2. As the film’s historical consultant, Joshua Levine chimes in about the mission’s importance to world’s history, “If the British army had been killed or taken prisoner, Britain would almost certainly have surrendered, and we’d likely be living in a very different world today.”
Back to the film adaptation, Nolan divided the movie into three sections: The Mole, The Sea, and The Air. These three sections are the elements from the movie which make “Dunkirk” unique. “In looking at how to tell the story, I came fairly early on to the idea of showing events from the land, sea and air: seeing the action from the perspectives of the men on the beach, the people coming to help on the boats, and the pilots trying to protect them from above,” explains Nolan. Among the troops whether those who rescue or being rescued, we don’t get to see any character who stood out the most. There is only the spirit of the mission and suspense that hung heavily in the air. Nolan was capable of translating them into the movie, and made the viewers felt the agitation, fear, and hopelessness of the Allies troop who were stranded on the shore of Dunkirk. We also wanted to give props to the visual aspect of the movie. As announced through the film’s distributor, this movie was 65% shot using 70mm IMAX format film, one of Nolan’s idealistic trait to create his piece of work using the old school technique. In return, we got to see a spectacular tone in the scenes and it was like watching the near impossible mission in real life.
Another vital point of the movie is the perfect scoring by Hans Zimmer. His touch became inseparable part of the movie, that gives it a character. A suspenseful time was built up immensely with the help of Zimmer’s music scoring and sound effect. We had to thank the sound of explosion, planes, ticking clock and shooting that largely play a part in this film rather than dialogues. The cast, like Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy or even Harry Styles who is a newcomer to the movie industry portrayed their characters well. The film will be shown regularly on Indonesian theaters starting from 21 July 2017. We strongly suggest you to watch it on IMAX since it will give you the most cinematic experience in both audio and visual. You will not regret watching this movie, and from the look of it, “Dunkirk” is slated to become a strong contender on Academy Awards race.
Reviewer: Bonifasius Eiji/Editor: Novita Widia
